The staple of the Taiwan lunch is something called "lunch box." At it's essence it is some rice, three sides dishes consisting of some mix of vegetables and tofu, probably half an egg, and some meat (fish, pork, chicken being the most common). You also get some tea and some soup. All totally somewhere between two and three bucks.
It's called lunch box because many people take these meals in boxes to go, but you are free to eat in the restaurant as well. these places are normally packed during lunch times and dinner times. Which in Taiwan are very strict. Most places are open for lunch between 11 and 1, and for dinner between 5 and 8. but that is the "open time" but it doesn't mean all the food is ready when it opens and all the food is still available until closing. honestly you have about an hour and a half window for lunch or dinner, if you don't make that time, than you're missing a meal that day. this can be very stressful, especially if you are busy and have to try and get out to make this small window. But i guess it can also be good to force your eating habits to be so regular.
Another drawback of the lunchbox restaurant are that they usually only have a few selections for your sides, and some places don't even give you a choice. To remedy this there are what we can call lunch box buffets. These are basically the same dishes served at a lunch box spot, but they provide a much wider choices of sides. I personally prefer these places as they also provide more choices for the meat, ones that are actually a cooked up dish (similar to the chinese food back in the states), rather than the slab of meat that comes with most lunch boxes.
These buffets vary in price, quality and focus. There are some that are vegetarian only, complete with fake meat dishes. there are ones that use less oil (taiwanese cooking is notorious for using a lot of oil to cook it's vegetables, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of eating vegetables). They also differ in their pricing model. Some charge per each dish you have, which usually means you have to pile in a lot, because if you get one string bean, it's the same price as if you get 100 string beans. There are some that charge on weight, although these seem very rare now a days. and mostly ones that charge just by eyeing it and giving you a price. These are always the most fun as coworkers and i used to have competitions on who could get the lowest price. I definitely picked up some tricks on how to get lower prices. I don't really use these, but sometimes I have to break them out when you see that somebody else got pretty much the same as you but they got a lower price.
Pictured above is from one of the higher quality buffets, an actual chain store. I got a lot as i was very hungry this day (i think i missed the afore mentioned short lunch window that day). My favorite buffet is another one near my house that is very good but also extremely cheap as it is owned by a family. In fact one time a friend went there for the first time and when she went to pay for it, the owner said "40" (less than $1.50 usd) to which my friend said "40!?" "40!?" She was just too shocked by the low price. Although maybe they learned a lesson because the next time she was there they charged her 50, but she also had more food that time.
One last thing. In Taiwan, many vegetables don't have specific names. There are quite a few that are just called "green vegetable number _" I think they range from 1 to 8 but i'm not sure. I often just get vegetables, so one day i'm planning to try and get as many of these green vegetables as possible. If i get all eight, maybe i win a prize!
